Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life.

Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel
No self-reproach.

The Old Cumberland Beggar.

As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!
There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon.

Ibid.

Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 1.

The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me, her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.

Full twenty times was Peter feared,
For once that Peter was respected.

A primrose by a river's brim.
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
On a fair prospect some have looked,
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been

Stanza 27.

Part i. Stanza 3.

Stanza 12.

Stanza 15.

A thing as steadfast as the scene

On which they gazed themselves away.

Stanza 16.

As if the man had fixed his face,

In many a solitary place,

Against the wind and open sky!

Stanza 26.1

The original edition (London, 1819, 8vo) had the foliowing as the fourth stanza from the end of Part i., which was omitted in all subse

quent editions:

Is it a party in a parlour?

Crammed just as they on earth were crammed, –

Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,

But, as you by their faces see,

All silent and all damned.

One of those heavenly days that cannot die.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove, -

A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye;

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

Nutting.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh

The difference to me!

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Three years she grew in Sun and Shower.

May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn hic jacet!

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love and thought and joy.

The child is father of the man.1

Ellen Irwin.

The Sparrow's Nest.

My heart leaps up when I behold.

The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

1 See Milton, page 241.

The Cock is crowing.

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

To a Butterfly. I've watched you now a full half-hour.

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure, -
Sighed to think I read a book,
Only read, perhaps, by me.

To the Small Celandine.

As high as we have mounted in delight,
In our dejection do we sink as low.

Resolution and Independence. Stanza 4.

But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountain-side.
By our own spirits we are deified;

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness,

Stanza 6.

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

Stanza 7.

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it moves at all.

Stanza 11.

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach

Of ordinary men.

Stanza 14.

And mighty poets in their misery dead.

Stanza 17.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Earth has not anything to show more fair.

The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.

It is a beauteous Evening.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.

Thou has left behind

air, earth, and skies!

Powers that will work for thee,
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.1

One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave.

To Toussaint L'Ouverture.

A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 5.

He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

Stanza 10.

Stanza 11.

The harvest of a quiet eye,

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

Stanza 13.

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.

My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.

And often, glad no more,

Matthew.

The Fountain.

Ibid.

We wear a face of joy because

We have been glad of yore.

Ibid.

1 See Gray, page 382.

The sweetest thing that ever grew

Beside a human door.

A youth to whom was given

So much of earth, so much of heaven.

Lucy Gray. Stanza 2.

Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.
Something between a hindrance and a help.
Drink, pretty creature, drink!

Lady of the Mere,

Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.

Ruth.

The Brothers.

Michael.

The Pet Lamb.

A narrow Girdle of rough Stones and Crags.

And he is oft the wisest man

Who is not wise at all.

The Oak and the Broom.

"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.

Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Plain living and high thinking are no more.
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.

Ibid.

Ibid.

O Friend! I know not which way I must look.
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee!

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness.

London, 1802.

We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
It is not to be thought of.

A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.

Stanzas written in Thomson's Castle of Indolence.